When you think of the British car company MG, most people think of classic sports cars like the MG B, MG midget, or more recently the TF which was introduced in the early 2000’s. the reality is that MG designed and built a full range of sedans and mid sized cars. As always, MG cars were beautiful examples of automotive design, and innovation. Like many British cars built by MG they were also temperamental. (I know this from the first hand experience of owning an MG many years ago) One thing that most people probably don’t know, is MG built a custom made land speed record holder in 1957. A car custom built to be driven by Sterling Moss to a top speed of 245 mph at the Bonneville Salt Flats.

The MG EX181 was a bespoke automobile with one purpose; Go fast. The MG EX181 had a 1.5 liter engine from a MGA but it had been tuned to run on was 86% methanol laced with nitrobenzene, acetone and sulphuric ether. I can’t even imagine what the engineers went through to come up with that fuel formula. It doesn’t matter because it worked. In 1957, with Sterling Moss at the wheel, they had a world record setting run of 245mph and placing MG in the record books for all time.

The video below is a twelve minute short that documents the design engineering that went into making this car. It shows how they designed the car around Sterling Moss, streamlining the form for the best performance they could achieve.